Hawthorne, Romanticism, The
Scarlet Letter, and Figurative
Language
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Born in Salem, MA in 1804
Descendant of early Puritan settlers,
including Judge Hathorne of Witch
Trial infamy
Ashamed of family name, so changed
spelling to Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Puritan heritage informed and
haunted all of his writing
Known for short stories and novels
First novel: Fanshawe
Other novels: The House of the Seven
Gables, The Bilthedale Romance, and
The Marble Faun
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Worked in the Boston Custom House to
support writing
Good friends with other American
Romantics and Transcendentalists: Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, and
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Married Sophia Peabody in 1846
Died in 1864
The American Romantics
Stems from a break from the lack of
fantastical and creative artistry of the
Puritans
Reflects the still innocent, pre-Civil
War United States
Prominent Romantics: Hawthorne,
Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville,
Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau
The American Romantics
Characteristics of Romantic work:
Focus on a love of nature
Focus on the individual
Focus on truth as a universal concept
Imaginative, fantastical settings
The American Romantics
Highly symbolic
Features elements of the supernatural
Favors emotion over intellect
Development of national pride
The Scarlet Letter
First published in 1850
Considered Hawthorne’s strongest
longer work
Combines his experience in the Custom
House with his Puritan heritage
The Scarlet Letter
Major Themes:
Appearance vs. Reality
Individual vs. Society
Quest of Individual Expression
Good vs. Evil; dark vs. light
Nature vs. Civilization
Need for human connection
Figurative Language
Hawthorne’s main device for
communicating his message in The
Scarlet Letter is figurative language
Figurative language connects any
object or character to a symbolic
meaning through simile, metaphor,
allusion, or personification.
Figurative Language
Symbol
An image, thought, object, person, or
action that represents something else
Simile
A comparison of two objects using like or
as:
My love is like a red, red rose
Her smile was as big as a clown’s
Figurative Language
Metaphor
A comparison of two objects stating
one object is the other:
The raindrops are pearls on a string.
Figurative Language
Allusion
A reference to another literary work,
historical event or culture meant to bring
symbolic meaning to the text
In The Scarlet Letter, many of the
allusions are Biblical or references to
events during the height of the Puritans’
influence in New England
Figurative Language
Personification
Giving an inanimate object
characteristics of the living; giving an
inhuman object human characteristics
The grain waved in the wind, as
though it were the throng of a crowd,
cheering for their football team